[Rich]

I don't have time to format this properly now, but I'm amazed that the OHSAA even allows this nonsense. What's worse is the reaction of the coach who condoned what the player did.

I'll format it later when I get time (unless another moderator can do it for me).

--Rich



Bending rules to the extreme?

Badin's Nick Browning will play in the state tournament after all

HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL

Tom Archdeacon

The coach has tempered some of his more critical comments from the other day, but he didn't go back on one defiant promise.
Hamilton Badin High School was in the process of fighting back from a 6-1 deficit to Johnstown Northridge in the Division III baseball regional championship late Friday night when star center fielder Nick Browning was involved in a disputed play that still is stirring controversy.
Browning led off the top of the eighth inning getting hit by a pitch. He stole second and then, of his own volition, tried to steal third but was called out by longtime Dayton umpire Jeff Klepacz in what was a split-second slide-and-tag play.
The emotion of the moment prompted Browning to pop up, flip his helmet and, according to Klepacz, yell "Bulls--! That was bulls--!"
Klepacz promptly ejected the Badin senior and that's when the real dispute began.
Folks from Badin - especially head coach Brion Treadway - quickly realized if Browning was thrown out, he would be forced - per Ohio High School Athletic Association rules - to serve an immediate two-game suspension.
And if Badin came back to win this regional title game (which it did, 9-6), the team would go to the state tournament, but Browning would not be permitted to play in Thursday's semifinal or in the title game.
That spurred Treadway's on-field argument. He claimed Browning's outburst wasn't directed at Klepacz, but the veteran umpire disagreed.
"Look, I umpire Dragons games and guys on those teams swear all the time, but it's not directed at me," Klepacz said Tuesday. "If a guy there says the same thing but doesn't try to show up the umpires that's fine.
"But in high school we are specifically told by the OHSAA that if someone cusses, gets out of line or is unsportsmanlike, they're done. So I had a job to do and I did it. Period."
Treadway said he tried to no avail to engage Klepacz in discussion: "I felt it was a heat of the moment deal for Nick and the umpire. I wish the ump would have said, 'One more word and you're gone.' Or said, 'Coach, if you don't take him out, I'm gonna throw him out.' But (Klepacz) really wouldn't go into anything with me. There was no human interaction."
Klepacz said he tried "to be professional" about it, even when he claims "some of the Badin parents came down along the third-base line and started cussing at me and calling me names."
After the game, Tread-way offered some pointed criticisms of Klepacz.
"For that umpire to take away the opportunity of a senior leader to play in the state Final Four just really disturbs me," he told our reporter, Rick Cassano. "Quite honestly, I don't know how that guy goes to sleep at night with the way he acted."
Later, he referred to Klepacz's actions as "an unfortunate power trip of an umpire."
Klepacz thought the personal attack was out of bounds and off base: "I'm not some schlepp pushing a broom all day and then coming to a game not knowing what I'm doing. I do have credentials to be out there."
That he does.
He has umpired for 30 years, done Division I college games - including NCAA tournament play-in games - for 20 of them, worked nearly three dozen Dragons games and three Ohio high school state title games.
Before that he was a three-time All-City player at Wilbur Wright High School, played college ball at Sinclair Community College and the University of Dayton, minor league ball and is in the Dayton Baseball Hall of Fame.
Treadway was a great prep star, as well, and played college ball. Tuesday, when pressed about his postgame comments, he softened his public stance about Klepacz:
"Emotions were running hot for all of us. I wish I hadn't said anything. I've got the utmost respect for that umpire and all of them. I think they have a difficult job to do. I certainly didn't want to paint him in a bad light."
His mea culpa, though, came after he had followed through on another pointed promise after Friday's game.
He said because Browning was such a good kid - "he's the kind of kid I'd want my daughters to grow up and date, he's just outstanding" - and because he means so much to the team, he would schedule two quick games before the state tournament and sit his star for them.
That way he could play Browning at state.
And that's what Badin did the past two days.
On Monday the Rams played a quickly-arranged, five-inning affair with Roger Bacon, a team that already had lost 20 of 26 games, had ended its season 11 days earlier and was only able to field nine players. The game went five innings, Bacon got one hit and Badin, resting many regulars, won 10-0.
Tuesday at noon, Badin played fellow GCL powerhouse Cincinnati Moeller - headed to state in the DI competition - and lost 11-1 in five innings.
Although Treadway had told Cassano that playing two quick games like this was "not what we wanted to do," he had a different take late Tuesday:
"We were going to try to play a game to stay fresh. We wanted to get some at-bats and get some pitching. This would have happened regardless of the other issue. If you look back, we played between all our tournament games. We either had a scrimmage or a real game. But we were out of scrimmages. All we had left were two games we could add and so we did that.
"We weren't trying to circumvent the rules, but fortunately it also helped us get Nick back. And he deserves to play. I had never heard him cuss before this in the four years I had him. He's a good kid. A leader of our team. The kid worked so hard and the possibility of him missing out on the wonderful experience of going to state just really had left me shaken.
"Now it's worked out and I think Nick has learned a lot from this."
But once again the coach and the ump were of a different mind.
"What lesson does this send to all the kids there?" Klepacz said. "Is it that it's OK to bend the rules? Is it that you can get away with anything? What did they learn from this?"